Yesterday, October 16, I decided to dedicate my life to the service of God in East Asia, with a people group of which I've never met. I've only heard rumors of people going, rumors of need and unrest. Maybe someday I will even be able to spell Uyghur without google searching it, because now I can't. Last night and yesterday I cried more than I ever have in my life, at my own selfishness, at the thousands upon thousands that die every and night who never even heard the beautiful name of Jesus that saved my wretched soul. How can I sit idly by and apathetically live out my Christian life in a place where everyone knows the name of Jesus, there are churches on every street corner, and Bibles, yes, multiple Bibles sit on bookshelves in homes.
Yes, there is need here in the US, and I also cried for my brothers and friends in Chicago who are fatherless, the fallen souls captive to alcohol, drugs and sex in this city. But the thought that people die without knowing about Jesus and his love broke my heart into a million little pieces, and I wept for the millions, yes millions, perhaps billions who will sink down into an eternity away from God because I never had the courage to go and tell them how Jesus has changed me and rescued me from my own sin and that he can do the same for them if they just put their faith in him.
Yes, Lord, I will go.
But this is a prayer that I penned while staring out into the blackness of Lake Michigan at midnight. A prayer of questions, of inadequacy, but still of surrender.
October 16, 2014
Father, I feel so inadequate. I feel as if I stand on the shore of the ocean and have but one cup, one life to toss into the immeasurable depth. I feel as if I am a sheet of paper in a tempest buffeted by the winds of fear, desperation and insufficiency.
And yet... You don't call the strong, you call the weak. You are the God who created the ocean, Your breath is the crosswinds, You placed every star in its place and carved out their perfect paths in the night sky with Your fingertips. And You have called... me.
Me, chief of sinners, unrighteous in every way. You know me and yet... You choose me still.
Why, God? Why?
Spirit sanctify, create in me a new heart that desires you above all earthly things. God, the only thing that satisfies is You.
And Lord, help me become attune to your will. Empower me in faith, oh Holy and Righteous one. Make me a servant to your people— make me as low as You were when You came down to earth and lived as a human being.
Help me to retain a passion for knowing You. Give me a heart that longs for Your presence, and longs to bring You and You alone glory.
Give me the wisdom to speak Your words. Shape me every day into Your likeness, I am as clay in Your loving and perfect fingertips.
And refine me by fire, Lord. Set my heart ablaze like a meteor in the sky, bringing light to those who have lived their whole lives in darkness. Make my faith, small though it may seem, as pure as the gold that paves heaven's streets.
And never stop breaking my heart to preach Christ crucified and risen again for me, and for every man and woman on earth.
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